


12 steps

by greninja



Series: canonverse edling [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M, bone apple teeth i guess, i dont know what this is, i wrote it at like 1 in the morning the other day bc iwas sad about something, my pathetic return to ao3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 19:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14817383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greninja/pseuds/greninja
Summary: so descend into cliche if you've found your holy grail / i could fill back in that grave, i could hammer in that nail





	12 steps

Ling isn't very good at saying goodbyes, so he chooses not to.

No, it's not hard, so much as it is messy. The messy part, where he can't keep the cool he so desperately grabs onto. He supposes it's easier to fill the grave than dig it deeper. He can't afford mistakes like feelings.

It's easier for Ling not to say goodbye to Ed. It would draw the end of times from the back of the room—it's finally real and here, ready to shake your hand.

Two hours after Ed and Al were carted off to intensive care, he is still sitting in the dust settling from battle. A white tarp folds over a body he won't see again, and Lan Fan's disappeared somewhere. Ling is caked in dirt and someone's blood, and he watches soldiers and quiet people mill about the wreckage. Central City is so _strange,_ he thinks. The day stretches on, working around the huge crater of trauma wrested from beyond what life they can imagine. The city took a hit, but everything heals with time.

Ling thinks. Clasped feebly in his left hand is the wine-dark vial, his right buried in his pocket. There's a lot to feel. The emptiness in his head is quite strange!—months of it being split in two and slipped on by an intruder had forced him to forget how the extra space felt—and his face is dry, lips are chapped. Not that he hadn't felt any of those things before, but they were his own again, and it felt a lot different to taste absence where someone else's lips used to be.

_Oh, fuck, am I making a mistake? I can't go back. I can't go back! Fuck._ He sits down on the old battlefield, dust sticking to his sweat-damp skin.

"We don't have to leave yet," Lan Fan says, appearing from behind a pile of rubble and gazing at the hospital. She rubs a spot of grime from her metal arm. "It's a long way back to Xing. You need some rest."

"No. If I go to that hospital, or to a hotel, or whatever—I'll never go home. I won't be able to do it, Lan Fan. Shit." Ling breathes out and holds the philosopher's stone up to the sun, inspecting it. "I did it. Now I just have to follow through."

He sees a right angle in the sky—his fist, level with Ed's. A last touch before he went with Al to the hospital, staggering under his discomfort. Ed's eyes are gold like the sky at home and the memory of being held in his hands almost feels real again. Too bad they probably won't ever get to touch each other like that again.

_No. It can't be._

The sunset touches the ground outside the city as Ling walks further away, alone. He is determined to leave for the eastern roads, back through the desert, back to Xing.

Lan Fan grabs his left hand from behind, circling her fingers around the bottle of red stone. "You're not leaving without me, and _I'm_ not leaving yet. Come with me." She rolls the bottle over. "Young lord, we don't have time for you to be doing—whatever you're doing, I don't know—just come with me. Let's eat."

Ling looks around quickly, noticing that the grounds around them are quite empty now.

"I don't want it—I don't fuckin' want it!" He thinks tears sting more when there's dirt in his eyes. "I just got the damn thing out of my body—I have to bring it back with me though, it's not leaving me alone, but—I don't want shit to do with it, you know? I don't know why I was so _naive,_ or _whatever,_ deciding to come here and find a fucking philosopher's stone, thinking it would actually make me happy—"

"You—Ling, I just think we should go rest indoors is all, I'm not trying to force you to do anything—I'm really not, I don't know where this is coming from—"

He grabs the stone from her hand and shakes it with each gasp of his own. "This is controlling my life. This is controlling my life! This is controlling my life!" He hunches over a bit, heaving with all the sobs he's ever tried to hold back. "I don't want to do this. Just—bury me here. Dig me a ditch, that way I won't hurt anyone, under there—"

"What?" Lan Fan pulls Ling closer to her, wrapping a hand over his shoulder.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I think," he says, "I just need to snap."

"You've been through a lot."

"Yeah. We both have."

"You almost lost your best friend—" Ling's breath catches. He didn't think anyone knew how close he was to Ed.

"Yeah." It's not like talking anymore, so much as it is peeling off dead skin. "I'm in love with him, huh?"

"Maybe you are." The sky grows pinker, their shadows longer and bluer against the earth.

"It's not really fair, that we met in the middle of a war." Ling's eyes scan the windows of the hospital building, hoping for a glimpse of someone familiar. "Which I know sounds so selfish, but like—I don't know. Everything we had to go through—I mean, it's fucked up. It fucked us up, you know?"

"I suppose."

"I didn't say a proper goodbye to him. I just have to _ruin_ everything by pushing my feelings so deep down—shit, I just want him to know."

"I'm telling you! We need to stay in the city one more night. Go see him."

"I can't. I can't! If I go back this'll all have been for nothing—I nearly killed myself to get the damn stone and I'm going to use it to become emperor, and I'm not sure I'm happy about that right now, but it's easier than facing him—or anyone—honestly. It just is."

"O Brave Lord Yao, future Emperor of Xing, who cannot even handle his own feelings." Lan Fan drawls with sarcasm.

"I've never been, like— _supposed_ to act out! Nothing I think or say makes any sense. Nothing I do is—is mine, I feel like. What I had with him was so—so hidden and small and _real_ that I don't want to go back and tamper with it, yeah? It's gotta—gotta live on in my mind like this. So I always have something to remember him by. I'd _love_ to think about some sort of future with him, but it's not going to happen!"

They both watch the sky darken, night melting past the Central skyline.

"It was pretty here," Lan Fan says, "until we all wrecked it."

Ling nods and swallows, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "I have to say goodbye to it."

"This is _so_ unlike you, Ling. I don't understand why you're being so stubborn—won't even talk to the guy you're in _love_ with, and I know you so well—I know you meant it. You can't leave without saying it for real. You're a mess." Lan Fan lets go of him and begins to walk away. "But I suppose I can't blame you."

Ling takes it all in again—the fresh glow of the street lamps in the distance, the roads they dot, so austerely empty, the moon gently chaperoning the shaken people of Central, scuttling back to their homes.

"Shit—okay. Let's go to the hospital. I do need to have a visit, don't I?"

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> HI evyerone here is a fun snack for you all. for some reason i'm still sad about this crush i had in 7th grade so i wrote this 2 veil my emotions. I love you ling yao. Ling yao please interact. Also this was kinda inspired by two songs, the title reflecting one by [japanese breakfast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9_-TNUnUs) and the description one by [car seat headrest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwj24E44Dak) because i'm a predictable idiot. Ok heres to hoping that whatever yall just read makes sense. Happy pride month


End file.
